Simon Ellis is a British film director.

Films

Ellis' short films have received many awards, including the International Jury Prize at

the Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,660 ...

, Best Short Film at BIFA, and BAFTA and European Academy Award nominations. Working in fiction, animation, hybrid documentary and interactive, his work been presented collectively in dedicated retrospective shows at numerous international film festivals. He continues to attend festivals as either filmmaker or juror and has mentored short film directors in both the UK and overseas.

''Ellis comes out of a strong tradition of regional British filmmaking. He is a very resourceful filmmaker who had embraced a DIY ethic even before digital technology made that option straightforward. Most importantly, he's an actor's director, and his ability to draw out convincing performances, often from inexperienced young actors and non-professionals, makes his films powerful, whatever the genre'' (Shots magazine)

''Soft'', commissioned by

Film 4 Film4 is a British free-to-air television network owned by Channel Four Television Corporation launched on 1 November 1998, devoted to broadcasting films. While its standard-definition channel is available on Freeview and Freesat platforms, it ...

and

UK Film Council The UK Film Council (UKFC) was a non-departmental public body set up in 2000 to develop and promote the film industry in the UK. It was constituted as a private company limited by guarantee, owned by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and ...

Cinema Extreme Cinema Extreme was a major UK short film funding awards scheme, created in 2002. The scheme was funded by the UK Film Council’s New Cinema Fund and Film4 and managed by The Bureau with the aim "to seek out and develop filmmakers with a distinc ...

scheme won thirty-eight festival prizes including the International Jury Prize at

, Best Short Film at the

British Independent Film Awards The British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) is an organisation that celebrates, supports and promotes British independent cinema and filmmaking talent in United Kingdom. Nominations for the annual awards ceremony are announced in early November, ...

, and both BAFTA and

European Film Awards The European Film Awards (or European Film Academy Awards) have been presented annually since 1988 by the European Film Academy to recognize excellence in European cinematic achievements. The awards are given in 19 categories, of which the most ...

nominations.

''I came across a short film recently which blew everything else I had seen that week out of the water. After it was over, there was no question of doing anything other than lying on the sofa with a cushion on my face, whimpering in fear and paranoia. 'Soft' is shocking and violent, and ingeniously, intimately upsetting in a way I can only compare to the controversial scenes in Gaspar Noé's Irréversible. The film reminded me of an essay I read by the late Alexander Walker about Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange: that the film was not merely about violence but about something deeper, darker, more unsayable: a fear of our children, and older people's fear and hatred of the young.'' (
Peter Bradshaw Peter Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire''. Early life and education Bradshaw was educated at Haberdashers ...
,
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
)

The films ''Telling Lies'' and ''Soft'' both feature on th
Cinema 16
DVD collection, on 'British Short Films' and 'World Short Films', respectively. Alongside short films by

Ridley Scott Sir Ridley Scott (born 30 November 1937) is a British film director and producer. Directing, among others, science fiction films, his work is known for its atmospheric and highly concentrated visual style. Scott has received many accolades thr ...

Christopher Nolan Christopher Edward Nolan (born 30 July 1970) is a British-American filmmaker. Known for his lucrative Cinema of the United States, Hollywood blockbusters with complex storytelling, Nolan is considered a leading filmmaker of the 21st century. ...

Guillermo del Toro Guillermo del Toro Gómez (; born October 9, 1964) is a Mexican filmmaker, author, and actor. He directed the Academy Award–winning fantasy films ''Pan's Labyrinth'' (2006) and ''The Shape of Water'' (2017), winning the Academy Awards for Be ...

Mike Leigh Mike Leigh (born 20 February 1943) is an English film and theatre director, screenwriter and playwright. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and further at the Camberwell School of Art, the Central School of Art and Design ...

Lynne Ramsay Lynne Ramsay (born 5 December 1969) is a Scottish film director, writer, producer, and cinematographer best known for the feature films '' Ratcatcher'' (1999), ''Morvern Callar'' (2002), '' We Need to Talk About Kevin'' (2011), and '' You Were N ...

and many others, Ellis is the only director to feature twice in the series.

Music videos

In a major collaboration with UK beatboxing champion and loop pedal artist

The Petebox ''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite ...

, Ellis directed a video for every track from the albu
Future Loops
for an innovative dual CD/DVD album campaign. Each video is a single-take documentary of the actual live recordings, initially released virally in chronological album order via YouTube, amassing millions of views. He has also directed two environmental binaural recording documentaries wit
Swimming

Commercial work

The

multi-narrative Multiperspectivity (sometimes polyperspectivity) is a characteristic of narration or representation, where more than one perspective is represented to the audience. Most frequently the term is applied to fiction which employs multiple narrators, ...

, interactive anti-knife crime campaign film
Choose a Different Ending
an
Who Killed Deon
which won 60+ awards collectively, including several golds and the inaugural Grand Prix for Good at the Cannes Lions, plus golds at the Clio Awards, and the

British Television Advertising Awards The British Arrows (formerly the British Television Advertising Awards (BTAA)) is an advertising awards body in London, which honours the best moving image advertising in the UK. Founded in 1976, the British Arrows awards advertising agencies and p ...

. Ellis was bestowed with the Young Director Award for Best European Web Film fo
Choose a Different Ending
an
Who Killed Deon
was ranked 'most awarded TV campaign in the world' by

Campaign Campaign or The Campaign may refer to: Types of campaigns * Campaign, in agriculture, the period during which sugar beets are harvested and processed *Advertising campaign, a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme * Bl ...

magazine in January 2012.

''In these days of violence and shocking gornography, it's hard to be sickened by anything on TV – but when the stabbed guy realises he's dying (if you choose that option), my stomach turned. Great filming, great acting, great work.'' (Noel Bussey,
Campaign Campaign or The Campaign may refer to: Types of campaigns * Campaign, in agriculture, the period during which sugar beets are harvested and processed *Advertising campaign, a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme * Bl ...
)

The success of these campaigns saw Ellis direct further short films in single-take format for both the Scottish Police Federation and the National Police of Ukraine.

Selected filmography

* Ostrich Theory (2020) * As Dead As It Gets (2020) * World War Cup (2016) * Stew & Punch (2013) * Jam Today (2011) * Soft (2006) * What The (2004) * What about the Bodies (2002) * 10 Again (2002) * Bass Invaders (2001) * Telling Lies (2000) * Thousand (1998)

External links

Official Website

Interview (2012)

Guardian article (07/2007)

Interview with Little White Lies magazine (12/2008)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ellis, Simon Living people English film directors English screenwriters English male screenwriters Year of birth missing (living people)